The Partnership Account® for Pension Professionals

We streamline the ERISA bonding process for our partners—and their clients.

Enjoy the benefits of Partnership.

The Partnership Account is a business arrangement between pension professionals and Colonial that simplifies the ERISA bonding process. It can help increase productivity for partners while lowering costs for their plan sponsors.

  • Quote and purchase online, instantly
  • Complete ERISA plan sponsor insurance protection, fiduciary and cyber liability insurance.
  • Personalized hyperlink for annual census and on boarding documents
  • Free Bond Compliance Program
  • Powerful client management dashboard
  • Financial incentives for referrals

Innovative products for you and your plan sponsors.

We offer our Pension Professional partners; errors and omissions insurance/professional liability insurance, cyber liability insurance, and employment practices liability insurance (EPLI). For plan sponsors we offer ERISA fidelity bonds, Fiduciary Liability Insurance or a unique package of ERISA coverage and fiduciary liability that includes cyber liability insurance for unparalleled protection and value.

Get access to deep ERISA expertise.

Our support team is educated in all aspects of ERISA statutes as it relates to bonding and insurance. In addition, our ERISA support attorneys and customer service representatives have decades of experience in ERISA fidelity bonding and insurance.

Becoming a partner is easy.

  1. 1
    Create a Partnership Account

    Complete our signup process and, once approved, you’ll be able to access your account.

  2. 2
    Use Your Referral Code

    Start ERISA bond applications for your clients or send them your referral code.

  3. 3
    Manage Client Coverage

    Our tools will help you easily track client status, verify compliance, and renew coverage.

Get Started

You now have access to Cyber Liability and Employment Practices Liability Insurance from your dashboard:

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Colonial is a leading provider of pension professional and plan sponsor insurance for the pension industry.

    We offer ERISA fidelity bonds, fiduciary liability insurance, and cyber liability insurance for plan sponsors. Our cyber liability insurance is currently only offered with our two or three-year ERISA fidelity bond packages.

    For pension professionals, we offer our Pension Professional partners; service provider bonds, errors and omissions insurance/professional liability insurance, cyber liability insurance, and employment practices liability insurance (EPLI).

  • Colonial’s proprietary e-commerce engine allows you to instantly quote and purchase bonds online. Once you enter plan information and complete the application, your bond and insurance purchases are immediately available, and can be printed on-demand. It’s just that simple.

  • 66% of small to medium sized businesses reported a cyber attack in 2018, up from the 55% in 2016, and according to media sources and public information, over $1.6 trillion dollars have been lost in the U.S. due to data breaches. The Department of Labor has gathered steps to help protect data, but there is no way to stop all breaches. Colonial introduced cyber liability insurance as an effective and affordable way to help businesses mitigate the risk of losses due to a cyber breach.

    Our two and three-year packages offer extended coverage and cyber liability insurance for plan sponsors at no extra cost. In addition, these two and three-year packages offer greater annual savings compared to a one-year fiduciary liability package.

  • Colonial’s cyber coverage protects your plan sponsor and their business by providing a solution to help manage data breaches successfully. Services include a dedicated team of cyber breach professionals who assist plan sponsors at every stage of incident investigation and breach response. These professionals coordinate forensics experts and specialized lawyers to help establish what’s been compromised, assess the plan sponsor’s responsibility, and notify those individuals affected.

    In addition, coverage includes the coordination of any needed credit or identify monitoring and public relations advice to help a business safeguard its reputation. Of course, Colonial’s cyber liability insurance also indemnifies and defends plan sponsors from covered lawsuits or regulatory actions that could result from a data breach.

  • Extended coverage is protection we offer to our two and three-year ERISA fidelity bonds, for qualifying assets only. It guarantees that as plan assets grow, the bond will also increase to maintain compliance with the U.S. Department of Labor—for no additional cost during the coverage period.

  • Yes, this is unique to Colonial. We make it easy to obtain ERISA fidelity bonds and even allow the purchase of retroactive coverage for previous years that a plan was not bonded.

    The retroactive coverage eliminates the risks of plan sponsors receiving a citation or possible audit for the U.S. Department of Labor, which can be both time consuming and expensive.

  • Fiduciary liability insurance protects a plan sponsor’s personal assets due to a breach of a fiduciary duty, such as imprudent plan investments or investments having excessively high fees. Not having this coverage in place puts your own personal assets at risk. For example, Colonial has paid and defended fiduciary liability claims ranging from $10,000 to over $1,000,000. Getting this peace of mind is well worth the cost of coverage, which averages as low as $130 per year.

  • Our online dashboard provides real-time information and enables you to instantly purchase or renew a client’s ERISA bond, view renewal history, adjust bond limits, and much more. These free management tools allow you to become more efficient—working smarter, not harder.

  • Yes, you can insert your referral link into the bond section of the annual census and your onboarding documents. If a plan sponsor answers “no” to having a bond, they will be directed to click on Colonial’s link to obtain bond coverage immediately.

    Implementation of this process will help get all of your plan sponsors into bond compliance for the upcoming year, which means you’ll no longer need to track them down to obtain bond coverage during the 5500 filing season—because they’ll already be bonded.

  • Our free service saves administrators the time associated with confirming and verifying ERISA bond coverage when filing the 5500. It is the most efficient way to view all of your plan sponsors’ ERISA fidelity bond information in one place. You can even purchase a bond for your client retroactively to ensure U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) compliance and avoid costly fines.

    Our proprietary Bond Compliance Program offers a simple solution for pension professional firms to confirm and verify bond compliance for all of their clients—with both Colonial and other sureties. Our proprietary software generates a detailed report which details whether a plan is bonded, not bonded, or insufficiently bonded. Colonial will then work with your firm on the best approach to get all of your plan sponsors in compliance with the DOL, while also providing cost saving on ERISA fidelity bonds.

  • Pension professionals partner with Colonial to consolidate their plan sponsors’ ERISA bonds into one location and ensure they are U.S. Department of Labor compliant. Colonial is rated “A” Excellent by A.M. Best Company and is a long tenured member of ASPPA and NIPA.

    At Colonial, you can easily obtain industry-specific protection for yourself with errors & omissions insurance and fiduciary liability insurance.

  • Pension professionals have the opportunity to earn advertising transaction revenue with their referral code, hyperlink, and Bond Compliance Program purchases of ERISA fidelity bonds and fiduciary liability insurance. Participation in this aspect of the program is optional.

Get the word straight from our customers.